142 HOW TO GROW GOOD CLOVER. 



taken all the available manurial matter, so that there 

 is little left for the clover to feed upon. In such 

 cases we have seen the clover saved by top dressing. 

 Paring and burning had also a salutary effect upon 

 the clover crop in the destruction which it wrought 

 to various insect pests, and more especially the wire- 

 worm, which now makes such increasing inroads upon 

 our crops of wheat and barley, and so afterwards in 

 the clover ; so that bare patches, often of great extent, 

 will be the consequence in every crop in the rotation. 

 Now, these bare patches in the clover crop are often 

 appealed to as evidence of clover-sickness, whilst we 

 do not at the same time say that land is wheat-sick 

 or barley-sick. 



Insects, indeed, are yearly becoming more destruc- 

 tive, not only on account of the difference in the 

 mode of farming, but greatly from the determined 

 destruction of birds. The food of birds is in general 

 very mixed, but at one season of the year, when they 

 are breeding, they are most industrious destroyers of 

 insects ; but it is just at this time that they are kept 

 from the crops, exactly when insects are working the 

 most mischief: hence, then, as the exigencies of 

 a small growing family become more and more 

 pressing, birds are driven to feed their young upon 

 seeds, fruits, buds, and other vegetable matters, as 

 unsuitable to build up the constitution of the young 

 bird as bread diet for an infant. 



Let, however, our grand birds of prey be encouraged, 

 instead of being shot by the keeper as vermin, or 

 knocked over by the prowling bird-stuffer, in order to 

 be perched up in a box for sale to some Cockney, who 



